Puzder wants to keep the minimum wage as low as possible – and, in his time as CEO, his companies have faced wage theft, civil rights, tax evasion, sexual harassment and racist discrimination suits from employees more than any other big burger chain. Can we trust Andy Puzder, with that record, to protect all workers’ rights?

We say NO.

Andy Puzder represents the worst of the rigged economy Donald Trump pledged to take on as president,” Terrance Dixon, a Hardee's worker in St. Louis, said in a statement.“If Puzder is confirmed as labor secretary, it will mean the Trump years will be about low pay, wage theft, sexual harassment and racial discrimination, instead of making lives better for working Americans like me.”

We will demonstrate in front of the Mcdonalds at 420 Monroe Ave. at 5:30 PM on Monday 2/13.

Join your community in showing your support for our workers here in Rochester and throughout the country.

Monday’s actions follow a series of damaging revelations about the controversial Labor nominee. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that for years Puzder did not pay legally required taxes for a housekeeper he employed until after President Trump tapped him to lead the DOL. The New York Times revealed as a young attorney Puzder went to battle with federal labor regulators under the mentorship of a notorious mob lawyer. And, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, former Hardee’s worker JoAnne Wise wrote about how decades of work at the fast-food chain left her with no savings, no health benefits and no plans for retirement.

Puzder’s restaurants have a long and troubled history of worker abuse. In late January, workers filed 33 complaints with state and federal agencies alleging wage theft, sexual harassment, and retaliation and intimidation against workers trying to organize on the job. In 60 percent of Department of Labor investigations since 2009, CKE restaurants and franchises were found to have violated wage and hour laws. Since Puzder became CEO of CKE in 2000, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which falls under the DOL, has found 98 safety violations at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s locations, with 36 of them capable of causing death or grave physical harm. Capital & Main reported that, under Puzder’s tenure as CEO, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s have been hit with more federal employment discrimination lawsuits than any other major U.S. hamburger chain.

According to CKE’s latest financial disclosures, Puzder makes as much as $10 million a year, which means he makes more in one day than he pays his minimum wage workers in one year. Despite this, he has been an outspoken opponent of minimum wage hikes, spending $10,000 of his own money in 2006 to block a Nevada ballot initiative raising the minimum wage to just $6.15. He’s shown open contempt for his own workers, calling them “the best of the worst.” A report from the National Employment Law Project estimated Puzder’s low pay costs taxpayers $250 million a year in public assistance.

Puzder has also opposed basic protections and workers’ rights, like meal and rest breaks for employees working long hours. He has even said he would like to replace Carl’s Jr. workers with machines because they “never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.” Puzder has also supported repealing the Affordable Care Act and cuts to Medicaid, even while he forces his own workers to rely on these programs by denying them health care.